


Titanium

by CrackingLamb



Series: Bits and Pieces From the Soldier, Spectre, Savior Universe [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: A wee bit of Violence, Gen, ME2, Male-Female Friendship, Paragon Actions, Some Swearing, if you're reading this anywhere other than ao3 it's been stolen, please report it thanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 23:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20750462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: Shore leave on Omega leaves Joker on board the Normandy...until Shepard asks him to come along on an errand with her.





	Titanium

“Joker,” Jayne said striding into the cockpit to see her pilot still hunched over his controls. “We're on shore leave.”

Joker eyed her from under the brim of his cap. “It's Omega, Commander.”

“And...?”

“What the hell do you think I'm going to do on Omega? Fall over for laughs? I can do that in the privacy of my bunk, thanks.”

Jayne paused, thinking to herself that he had a point. Omega wasn't a great first choice for shore leave, but she just couldn't face the Citadel right now. Not after the meeting with the Council where she was decried for working with Cerberus, and so many faces had been hard and closed to her, even among the ranks of the C-Sec officers she'd once known and worked alongside. Theis Irtaka had been the only friendly turian among the officers they'd seen.

And it was the same in all the Wards, hard faces, aliens who looked askance at her, humans who looked askance at her crew. The galaxy had changed so much in two years. It was hard to keep rolling with those changes as if they didn't bother her.

“C'mon,” she said, forcing a bright lightheartedness into her voice. “Come with me to the Market. I've got an errand to run and would like the company.”

Joker gave her another exasperated glare, but didn't argue, reaching down to the floor where he kept his crutches secured during flight. He made a show of laboring himself up and onto them, huffing and groaning with exaggeration until she was grinning at him.

“Can it, Moreau, I know you can move better than that. Besides, don't you want to know what your illustrious Commander spends her creds on?”

“If it's some new sex thing for you and Garrus...” he said in a threatening tone. She laughed. Only Joker could get away with a comment like that.

“I promise it isn't.”

He shuffled along next to her as they went through the decontamination airlock before setting foot on the asteroid station. The smell hit her right away, but now that they'd docked there a couple times, it was less offensive and more..._homely_. Which was odd. Probably residual nostalgia for picking Garrus up here, even if it was at the end of a firefight where he nearly lost his life.

“Damn, it stinks,” Joker said, disrupting her train of thought. She was grateful.

“Too much recycling in the air filtration, as Mordin would say.”

“Deliberate slum, I say.”

“Hmm, you're probably not wrong. Omega certainly seems to display a certain sense of willful dilapidation.”

She pointed to where they were headed and Joker inched along, his crippled legs barely taking a half step for each of hers. She slowed her pace to match him, keeping her head high and staring down anyone who looked at them funny. She was reasonably well known now after her interactions with Aria T'Loak – not to mention the beating she and Garrus had collectively given the three biggest merc outfits – and no one was willing to tangle with her. Not even the krogan wearing Blood Pack armor eyeing them from the shadows. She heard the rumors floating around that Archangel was dead; she was content to let them stand if it meant less hassle for her in the long run.

“So what's this errand, anyway?”

“A debt.”

They reached the Market and Jayne's attention was drawn to the batarian spouting off about the end times before she could stop herself. “_The end is nigh!_” he shouted to his crowd of half zealous, half disgusted onlookers. She shuddered, wondering what he knew while simultaneously wanting to ignore his presence. Her antipathy for batarians aside, she didn't want to think about his message too closely. The Reapers were coming. And she was stuck doing fetch quests for the Illusive Man. It rankled.

“Doomsayers,” Joker muttered. “What good does bitching ever do for a situation?”

“You tell me,” she teased.

“Okay, that's fair.”

“Speaking of which...how are you getting along with EDI now?”

“That's low, Commander.” She grinned at him. He sighed. “She's...all right, she's not as awful as she could be.”

“Is she still telling you when airlocks are ajar?”

“No. But...she's got some strange questions about life.”

“She's an AI, Joker. All the programming in the world is no substitute for experience.”

“I guess so.”

They passed by the hulking figure of an elcor vendor, who turned away from Jayne's direct gaze. If Joker saw it, he didn't comment. Instead he groaned at the sight of the stairs leading down into the darker underbelly of the already dark and gloomy station.

“We're almost there,” she said, as if she wasn't already thinking about how she was going to get him back up to the docking level. She suddenly felt selfish for making him come with her. It was hard enough for Joker to walk, and this was more than he'd done in a while. He was going to be tired, and in more pain, simply because she'd wanted company that wasn't her usual band of miscreants and misfits. It wasn't like she could ask Garrus. He had enough on his plate today, with Chakwas redressing his bandages. Plus the whole Archangel being dead thing.

“You all right, Shepard?” Joker asked, zeroing in on her sudden disquieted mood. They'd been together a long time – as long as she'd been with the original Normandy – and he knew her better than anyone except maybe Anderson and Garrus.

“Yeah, I'm all right.”

“You're starting to bend under the weight of it all, it seems.” Joker took the steps down to the next level one at a time, carefully but expertly maneuvering his crutches so his full weight was never on his weak legs. “I'm not blind.”

“It all feels pointless sometimes. I mean, why did I get brought back to life? Why does the universe need _me_?”

Joker looked up and saw that she was still standing at the top of the stairs. His face looked stark in the contrasting light and shadows from the dim fixtures that illuminated the space. “Because you're Commander Fucking Shepard, that's why. No one else can do what you do.”

“Thanks...I think.”

“I'm serious,” he continued, watching her bounce down the stairs with something like envy in his eyes. “You're the first one into a fight, and usually the last one to leave. You ran headlong into the hunt for Saren, took down a Reaper and never stopped pushing the rest of us along with you. And yeah, it's a lot of pressure. A lot to live up to, even for yourself.”

“You're awfully wise today, Jeff.” Most people would have taken heed of the warning tone in her voice, and possibly changed the subject, but Joker knew her, and knew what she could take.

“Just callin' it like I see it.”

“Yeah? And what do you see?”

“I think you need to find a way to balance, Commander. I'm not the only one in danger of falling down.”

His words were flippant, but his eyes were dark and serious. She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, gently. “I'm trying,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.” He gave her a small smile, tinged with sadness perhaps. “You should try harder. Get that big armored stick up his ass turian to take better care of you.”

She smiled at that and led the way down an alley where vorcha loitered in the shadows. One of them hissed at the pair as they went by. He stood and got in her face.

“Weak man can't protect,” he said, spitting on her as he spoke. She contained her revulsion and stared back at the sharp teeth and drawn back skin of the creature. Vorcha weren't smart, barely more than upright varren, in her opinion. To have one try to challenge her...he must have found some good stims.

“I need no protection from the likes of you,” she said calmly. The other vorcha began to take notice, and Joker sputtered to a stop before getting a warning out as Jayne drew her pistol. She pointed it low, away from any vital organs, but still clearly threatening. “Back off.”

“Human weak, we take!” the vorcha exclaimed, but before he could do more than telegraph his intended movement, Jayne shot him in the leg, just above the ankle, snapping the shin bone with a single bullet. He fell, howling and rolling as his blood spattered the alley.

“Now you are the weak one,” she murmured and turned her back. She felt rather than saw the others slink away. It was always the same down here. A show of dominance was necessary, even if she didn't like it. “You all right, Jeff?”

“Yeah...yeah, I'm fine.”

“Sorry.” She turned to him as they made their way to a dimly lit market stall where a quarian stood helplessly wringing his fingers, watching the proceedings. “I shouldn't have made you come with me.”

“No, it's...you wanted company, you said. Well, I can do that, even if I can't do anything else.”

She nodded and went up to the quarian. “Hello, Kenn. Anything new in stock?”

“N-no,” the young man stammered. “Are you...are you all right, Commander?”

“I'm fine,” she said, holding her voice steady and smooth. “I have something for you.” She activated her omni-tool and transferred a thousand credits to Kenn's account. His omni-tool pinged when the transfer went through and he stood straighter and taller when he saw what she'd done.

“Commander...I...you shouldn't...”

“Finish your pilgrimage, Kenn. Take the gift of knowledge with you and a warning against shady deals in the back alleys of Omega to the Migrant Fleet.”

“Thank you, Commander...thank you. Here,” he said, opening a crate behind the dingy counter where he'd been lately running a low end junk stall. “Take anything you might find useful. Anything at all. I don't need it now.”

“Go on with you. Be safe,” she said softly, making sure he made it out of the alley before meeting Joker's eyes.

“That's why you wanted company? So you didn't give up half your creds to a lone quarian down on his luck on your own?”

“Have some faith in me, Joker. It wasn't half my creds.”

He looked skeptical at her deflection. “Uh huh. Gonna just ignore the part about doing a good deed with no one to see it?”

“It was the right thing to do, no matter who saw it. Besides, you needed to get out of the ship. It's not good for you to always be stuck there.”

“Tell that to my legs.”

“You want me to carry you back?” she teased.

“Fuck you, Shepard.”

“I think you'd break in half.”

Joker leaned on his crutches so his hands were free and took hers in them. “Would probably be worth it, although Garrus might kill me afterwards anyway.” His normally jaded expression fell away and his face looked suddenly younger and more vulnerable without it. “It was a good thing you did. Tali would be proud of you. I know it probably only feels like a drop in the bucket against everything...”

“I know,” she interrupted. “Hey, with any luck, maybe someday I'll get to tell her about it. And drops in the bucket still add up, right?”

“Yeah, they do. You'll get to tell her, and anyone else listening out there. Commander Shepard tolerates no evil,” he said, putting a forcefulness behind his words as if he could make them come true by wishing hard enough. Both of them knew there were no guarantees in the galaxy anymore. Not with the war that was coming. Joker shifted back on his feet, his hands gripping the crutches a little tighter than was probably necessary. “And no, I don't want you to carry me. I got out here, I'll get back just fine.”

“All right, Joker. Let's go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Titanium, as a metallic element, is well known for being light weight and strong. Durable. But it is also brittle. One wrong hit and it will shatter like glass. A good metaphor for early ME2 Shepard. And Joker too. 
> 
> I'm always up for hearing your thoughts and opinions. Drop me a comment, they are the lifeblood.


End file.
